Marc's 10th Year Cornell Reunion
Marc goes back to Ithaca to reunite with the
people and places that caused him to lose a lot of sleep in the early
nineties
If you ask me what I thought of my college years,
you are bound to get a mixed answer. While I had a great time and met lots of
wonderful people, the engineering program at Cornell forced me to work harder
than I ever had and nearly weeded me out at one point. With only two (yes, 2)
free electives for my entire four years, I spent most of my college life in
computer labs and crouched over
textbooks.
Now, hard work aside, I did meet some wonderful people during my time there and, after ten years, I started feeling a bit sentimental about "our fair Cornell." So, I decided to attend my 10 year reunion - an event that the keen blog-reader will notice coincided with Lauren's triathlon so it was not a decision I took lightly. Lauren gave me her blessing and I was off to reunite with my old college buddies - something I am very glad I did in retrospect.
Rents and G-Rents
Of course no trip to Ithaca would be complete without visiting the family. This time, I stayed with my grandparents which allowed me to spend some quality time with them in the mornings - sometimes it was just chatting, other times it was changing the lightbulbs they couldn't reach and other times it was discussing the price of ground chuck at Tops vs. Wegmans. It really doesn't matter what we talk about - I love hanging out with them and being a part of their lives when I'm home!
This trip was a little more exciting than usual since they needed me to help them capture their 16 pound cat, Cricket, for his trip to the vet. Cricket can be *very* mean and they were sure I was going to end up looking like... well... ground chuck at Tops after this encounter. I went up to get Cricket from their sun porch (I could hear Gramma going to get the Bactine as I went up the stairs. I faked him out with a nice hows-it-going pet and then snatched him by the scruff and help on tight. He immediately started howling and stretched out his paws like a starfish - he was PISSED. I ran him downstairs and plopped him in the crate without a scratch. Mission accomplished.
On Friday, Mom and Charlie came by to visit for lunch - Charlie is doing some computer support work at the library these days and so they were able to come up on his lunch break. It was a brief visit because they were heading off to Orient, Long Island the next day for a beach vacation and to visit our family - something that I miss a lot and I haven't done in close to 15 years! So, we had some sandwiches and caught up on how the plans for the Trumansburg house renovations were coming as well as their itinerary for the Orient trip.
Finally, on Saturday I got to zip out to Trumansburg to visit Dad, Jean, and David. We had a very nice and peaceful time sitting out on the "beach" my father has constructed along the creek behind his building. I laughed a bit when Dad started constructing this, but now I really am amazed at what a nice little sanctuary he has created on the bank of the creek. In my father's own words, it was a "splendid" visit.
Reunion - Thursday Night:
Back to the main purpose of my visit! Dan Sasson, my college roommate and life-long friend, drove up on Thursday evening to meet me for the festivities. The official events hadn't really started but that evening was meant to be a check-in for those people who were staying at the dorms. So, when Dan arrived we went over to West Campus to check him in. As we were walking around looking for the dorm, I asked Dan "do you know where you are going?" and he responded confidently "of course I do." I just looked at him and said "you are lying - West campus was where all the cool kids were and you and I were stuck up in lame North campus." He sheepishly agreed but we found his dorm. As we were checking in, I heard a "Marc Davis? Is that you??" and I looked over to see one of my good high-school friends, Kate Springer (now Covert) who was running our check in desk. She was working for Cornell and was very pregnant - so funny to run into a high-school friend at my college reunion.
After checking Dan into his unbelievably depressing tiny dorm room (no fond memories here - in fact if gave me the heebie jeebies) we grabbed dinner at the Hot Truck. Hot Truck and Louie's Lunch were two food trucks that were the staple of college meal plan. I ordered, of course, a Triple Suicide (Triple Soo-ee for those in the know) and threw my diet out the window - it's more sausage, pepperoni, cheese, sauce, and bread than any man should consume in one sitting. I barely finished that thing... ugh.
The sun was setting so we went up to the top of Libe Slope to see it - here's Dan taking in one of the more beautiful sites from our campus:
Next, we were off to the Chapter House - this is probably the most Ivy League bar in Collegetown - very classic wooden tables that aren't flat anymore due to all the carvings and pictures of the class of 1944 football team on the wall - you name it.
Here is Dan sipping his pint as we waited for Dan's friends, Greg and Osa to arrive:
After Greg and Osa joined us, we did a bunch of catching up and reminiscing only to eventually move to one of our other favorite bar/eateries, the Chariot. The Chariot is famous for its rather odd "Corn Nuggets" which would seem to be a little like a hush puppy if we were south of the Mason-Dixon line:
This rather tame evening ended with all of us grinning and soaking in Cornell with a full belly. Yum.
Reunion - Friday
Unfortunately, I had to work Friday morning but finished things up before my lunch with Mom and Charlie I mentioned above. Then I was off to campus in the afternoon - I met up with some friends, Katy and Jeff, at Collegetown Bagles (which used to be Oliver's 10 years ago) to hang out while they had some lunch. It was an unbelievably beautiful day - the kind of day that only happens for reunion and parent's weekend - perfect for sitting out on the patio...
Afterwards, I walked with Katy and Jeff across campus to get to our class dorm - we decided to consult a map just to see if anything had changed... it hadn't, really.
Please note the INCREDIBLY DORKY and HUGE reunion-button-name-tag-on-a-lanyard things that they gave us all to where. If any Cornell Reunion organizers are reading this - PLEASE come up with something different for next time. All of us went through varying stages of denial with this thing - putting it in our pockets, flashing it only when necessary like a badge, and eventually just letting it hang there around our necks looking like Flava-Flav from Public Enemy:
Anyway, after making our way across campus, I met up with Dan, Osa, and Greg at our student union, Willard Straight Hall. They were basking in the sunlight and taking in the view
We took a very long walk all around north campus and saw the extensive construction that has gone on since we left... unbelivable. Then we headed onward to the West Campus dorms once again to see if we could meet up with all the other folks that were arriving that day. I was literally amazed at how many people I knew that ended up making it to reunion. I have several photos but even they don't do it justice. It was at this point that I was really glad that I came. So many people had returned to Cornell after doing both amazing and not-so-amazing things and we could all just talk to one another and hang out like nothing had changed.
One of the more notable attendees was, of course, my other roommate for many years, Will Tseng.
Will married Tara - quite possibly one of the coolest women I have met, second to Lauren of course, but I'm not good at the whole photography thing and the only shot I have of her is blurry. However it was great to see them here of course. Will's parents have moved back to Philly which means we may see them more often if we coordinate family visits. They also live in LA so we have, on occasion, hooked up out there when visiting Rob.
Also of note was the number of offspring that had been produced. There are a lot of kids at these reunions and I expect it will be even more at the 15 and 20. Probably the cutest one there, though, belonged to my friend Alec Stevens and his wife, Deeni - this is Harris and he was adorable
That evening, we had a class dinner at a tent near the Johnson Art Museum and then made our way over to the all-classes party tents afterwards. They set up three tents in the Arts Quad - one with a swing orchestra for all the older alumni, one with a DJ which had very few people under it, and one with a pretty good band that was absolutely packed. We spent most of the evening there hanging out with friends, dancing, and drinking. It was a lot of fun:
We ran into several friends that evening that we hadn't seen in a long time - in particular, Rachelle Bernacki and Dave Berger - both people that Dan and I lived with in a huge house our Sophomore year:
We ended this evening like Thursday night - at The Chapter House. Nothing new to report here other than the fact that it was about 40 degrees out and I only had a short-sleeved shirt on which made the walk to Collegetown *brisk*
Reunion - Saturday
Saturday was more of the same - meeting up with more friends and walking around campus. It was another gorgeous day and people were just smiling ear-to-ear. I was really getting into this reunion thing :-)
I headed out to Trumansburg that afternoon to visit my father but also to attend a small party thrown by the roommate of one of my freshman friends who now lives in Trumansburg. This was very strange to me - my worlds were colliding. Basically, the story goes like this. I met this woman, Deborah, in the first weeks of school and we became good friends - I also, obviously, met her roommate, Leah and knew her pretty well too. After freshman year, Deborah dropped her mainstream persona, switched her major to dance, and took on a whole new lifestyle. Needless to say, my engineering geekness didn't fit too well into this new life - we remained friends but rarely ran into each other. A couple of weeks before reunion, I get an email from Deborah (first time in ten years) saying she saw me on the reunion list and wanted me to come to a party that Leah was throwing in Trumansburg. Of course I went, and it turns out that Leah and her boyfriend both know my father pretty well since T-burg is such a small town. So strange. Anyway, the party was a lot of fun and I got to catch up with both Leah and Deborah - people I haven't seen in ages. Here are two of my famous one-handed shots of us.
Leah:
Deborah:
After the Trumansburg soiree, I headed back to campus for more of the same. We went to the alumni tent and hung out with lots of people including my good friend Abi and his wife, Catherine:
After several hours of merriment, Dan, Greg, Osa, and I wrapped up our final reunion evening with a trip to our favorite 24 hour diner, "The State." The State Street diner is an institution and I have been eating late-night burgers, cheese fries, and milk shakes there since my high-school friends could drive. I can't even count the number of times I have been to this diner and there was no better way to put a bow on this trip than with a trip to the State.
Here are our Cheese Fries with gravy:
Here are Dan and Osa enjoying their fries:
Here are Greg and I enjoying our Mose Burgers. Neither of us know whether this is simply a misspelling of Moose or if there is some significance to the word Mose, but it's damn good either way.
In Conclusion
Coming to reunion wasn't an obvious decision for me but I am so glad I decided to go. It was truly a great experience and makes me look back on my college years with a newfound fondness. I realized I missed Lauren's triathlon to make this trip and I'm glad that she was OK with this because it was a very important experience for me. I'll be at the triathlon next year for sure!
Now, hard work aside, I did meet some wonderful people during my time there and, after ten years, I started feeling a bit sentimental about "our fair Cornell." So, I decided to attend my 10 year reunion - an event that the keen blog-reader will notice coincided with Lauren's triathlon so it was not a decision I took lightly. Lauren gave me her blessing and I was off to reunite with my old college buddies - something I am very glad I did in retrospect.
Rents and G-Rents
Of course no trip to Ithaca would be complete without visiting the family. This time, I stayed with my grandparents which allowed me to spend some quality time with them in the mornings - sometimes it was just chatting, other times it was changing the lightbulbs they couldn't reach and other times it was discussing the price of ground chuck at Tops vs. Wegmans. It really doesn't matter what we talk about - I love hanging out with them and being a part of their lives when I'm home!
This trip was a little more exciting than usual since they needed me to help them capture their 16 pound cat, Cricket, for his trip to the vet. Cricket can be *very* mean and they were sure I was going to end up looking like... well... ground chuck at Tops after this encounter. I went up to get Cricket from their sun porch (I could hear Gramma going to get the Bactine as I went up the stairs. I faked him out with a nice hows-it-going pet and then snatched him by the scruff and help on tight. He immediately started howling and stretched out his paws like a starfish - he was PISSED. I ran him downstairs and plopped him in the crate without a scratch. Mission accomplished.
On Friday, Mom and Charlie came by to visit for lunch - Charlie is doing some computer support work at the library these days and so they were able to come up on his lunch break. It was a brief visit because they were heading off to Orient, Long Island the next day for a beach vacation and to visit our family - something that I miss a lot and I haven't done in close to 15 years! So, we had some sandwiches and caught up on how the plans for the Trumansburg house renovations were coming as well as their itinerary for the Orient trip.
Finally, on Saturday I got to zip out to Trumansburg to visit Dad, Jean, and David. We had a very nice and peaceful time sitting out on the "beach" my father has constructed along the creek behind his building. I laughed a bit when Dad started constructing this, but now I really am amazed at what a nice little sanctuary he has created on the bank of the creek. In my father's own words, it was a "splendid" visit.
Reunion - Thursday Night:
Back to the main purpose of my visit! Dan Sasson, my college roommate and life-long friend, drove up on Thursday evening to meet me for the festivities. The official events hadn't really started but that evening was meant to be a check-in for those people who were staying at the dorms. So, when Dan arrived we went over to West Campus to check him in. As we were walking around looking for the dorm, I asked Dan "do you know where you are going?" and he responded confidently "of course I do." I just looked at him and said "you are lying - West campus was where all the cool kids were and you and I were stuck up in lame North campus." He sheepishly agreed but we found his dorm. As we were checking in, I heard a "Marc Davis? Is that you??" and I looked over to see one of my good high-school friends, Kate Springer (now Covert) who was running our check in desk. She was working for Cornell and was very pregnant - so funny to run into a high-school friend at my college reunion.
After checking Dan into his unbelievably depressing tiny dorm room (no fond memories here - in fact if gave me the heebie jeebies) we grabbed dinner at the Hot Truck. Hot Truck and Louie's Lunch were two food trucks that were the staple of college meal plan. I ordered, of course, a Triple Suicide (Triple Soo-ee for those in the know) and threw my diet out the window - it's more sausage, pepperoni, cheese, sauce, and bread than any man should consume in one sitting. I barely finished that thing... ugh.
The sun was setting so we went up to the top of Libe Slope to see it - here's Dan taking in one of the more beautiful sites from our campus:
Next, we were off to the Chapter House - this is probably the most Ivy League bar in Collegetown - very classic wooden tables that aren't flat anymore due to all the carvings and pictures of the class of 1944 football team on the wall - you name it.
Here is Dan sipping his pint as we waited for Dan's friends, Greg and Osa to arrive:
After Greg and Osa joined us, we did a bunch of catching up and reminiscing only to eventually move to one of our other favorite bar/eateries, the Chariot. The Chariot is famous for its rather odd "Corn Nuggets" which would seem to be a little like a hush puppy if we were south of the Mason-Dixon line:
This rather tame evening ended with all of us grinning and soaking in Cornell with a full belly. Yum.
Reunion - Friday
Unfortunately, I had to work Friday morning but finished things up before my lunch with Mom and Charlie I mentioned above. Then I was off to campus in the afternoon - I met up with some friends, Katy and Jeff, at Collegetown Bagles (which used to be Oliver's 10 years ago) to hang out while they had some lunch. It was an unbelievably beautiful day - the kind of day that only happens for reunion and parent's weekend - perfect for sitting out on the patio...
Afterwards, I walked with Katy and Jeff across campus to get to our class dorm - we decided to consult a map just to see if anything had changed... it hadn't, really.
Please note the INCREDIBLY DORKY and HUGE reunion-button-name-tag-on-a-lanyard things that they gave us all to where. If any Cornell Reunion organizers are reading this - PLEASE come up with something different for next time. All of us went through varying stages of denial with this thing - putting it in our pockets, flashing it only when necessary like a badge, and eventually just letting it hang there around our necks looking like Flava-Flav from Public Enemy:
Anyway, after making our way across campus, I met up with Dan, Osa, and Greg at our student union, Willard Straight Hall. They were basking in the sunlight and taking in the view
We took a very long walk all around north campus and saw the extensive construction that has gone on since we left... unbelivable. Then we headed onward to the West Campus dorms once again to see if we could meet up with all the other folks that were arriving that day. I was literally amazed at how many people I knew that ended up making it to reunion. I have several photos but even they don't do it justice. It was at this point that I was really glad that I came. So many people had returned to Cornell after doing both amazing and not-so-amazing things and we could all just talk to one another and hang out like nothing had changed.
One of the more notable attendees was, of course, my other roommate for many years, Will Tseng.
Will married Tara - quite possibly one of the coolest women I have met, second to Lauren of course, but I'm not good at the whole photography thing and the only shot I have of her is blurry. However it was great to see them here of course. Will's parents have moved back to Philly which means we may see them more often if we coordinate family visits. They also live in LA so we have, on occasion, hooked up out there when visiting Rob.
Also of note was the number of offspring that had been produced. There are a lot of kids at these reunions and I expect it will be even more at the 15 and 20. Probably the cutest one there, though, belonged to my friend Alec Stevens and his wife, Deeni - this is Harris and he was adorable
That evening, we had a class dinner at a tent near the Johnson Art Museum and then made our way over to the all-classes party tents afterwards. They set up three tents in the Arts Quad - one with a swing orchestra for all the older alumni, one with a DJ which had very few people under it, and one with a pretty good band that was absolutely packed. We spent most of the evening there hanging out with friends, dancing, and drinking. It was a lot of fun:
We ran into several friends that evening that we hadn't seen in a long time - in particular, Rachelle Bernacki and Dave Berger - both people that Dan and I lived with in a huge house our Sophomore year:
We ended this evening like Thursday night - at The Chapter House. Nothing new to report here other than the fact that it was about 40 degrees out and I only had a short-sleeved shirt on which made the walk to Collegetown *brisk*
Reunion - Saturday
Saturday was more of the same - meeting up with more friends and walking around campus. It was another gorgeous day and people were just smiling ear-to-ear. I was really getting into this reunion thing :-)
I headed out to Trumansburg that afternoon to visit my father but also to attend a small party thrown by the roommate of one of my freshman friends who now lives in Trumansburg. This was very strange to me - my worlds were colliding. Basically, the story goes like this. I met this woman, Deborah, in the first weeks of school and we became good friends - I also, obviously, met her roommate, Leah and knew her pretty well too. After freshman year, Deborah dropped her mainstream persona, switched her major to dance, and took on a whole new lifestyle. Needless to say, my engineering geekness didn't fit too well into this new life - we remained friends but rarely ran into each other. A couple of weeks before reunion, I get an email from Deborah (first time in ten years) saying she saw me on the reunion list and wanted me to come to a party that Leah was throwing in Trumansburg. Of course I went, and it turns out that Leah and her boyfriend both know my father pretty well since T-burg is such a small town. So strange. Anyway, the party was a lot of fun and I got to catch up with both Leah and Deborah - people I haven't seen in ages. Here are two of my famous one-handed shots of us.
Leah:
Deborah:
After the Trumansburg soiree, I headed back to campus for more of the same. We went to the alumni tent and hung out with lots of people including my good friend Abi and his wife, Catherine:
After several hours of merriment, Dan, Greg, Osa, and I wrapped up our final reunion evening with a trip to our favorite 24 hour diner, "The State." The State Street diner is an institution and I have been eating late-night burgers, cheese fries, and milk shakes there since my high-school friends could drive. I can't even count the number of times I have been to this diner and there was no better way to put a bow on this trip than with a trip to the State.
Here are our Cheese Fries with gravy:
Here are Dan and Osa enjoying their fries:
Here are Greg and I enjoying our Mose Burgers. Neither of us know whether this is simply a misspelling of Moose or if there is some significance to the word Mose, but it's damn good either way.
In Conclusion
Coming to reunion wasn't an obvious decision for me but I am so glad I decided to go. It was truly a great experience and makes me look back on my college years with a newfound fondness. I realized I missed Lauren's triathlon to make this trip and I'm glad that she was OK with this because it was a very important experience for me. I'll be at the triathlon next year for sure!
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Published On: Jun 21, 2004 01:03 AM
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Published On: Jun 21, 2004 01:03 AM